A 15-year-old township boy was charged with arson after he caused $70,000 worth of damage at a construction site off Darrah Lane May 9, police said.
An Allegheny Avenue resident reported the fire at 5:27 p.m. The fire had damaged more than 20 black plastic drainage pipes at the site.
Volunteer firefighters from the Lawrenceville, Lawrence Road and Slackwood fire companies put out the fire. No one was injured.
Police said the boy, whose name was not released because of his age, squirted flammable liquids on the pipes, which were about 48 inches in diameter. The pipes were set ablaze and melted. The heat from the burning pipes also damaged a John Deere backhoe that was parked nearby, police said.
The boy was playing with a group of six other boys at the construction site, police said. Those boys left, thinking that the fires had been extinguished, police said. But one of the fires apparently had not been fully extinguished and reignited, police said.
Through interviews with witnesses, police determined that the 15-year-old was the one who sprayed the flammable liquids and set the fires. Police also interviewed the other boys and did not decide to charge them.
The 15-year-old boy was arrested at police headquarters at 9:35 p.m. the same day. He was released to his parents’ custody.
